film series in Berkeley this summer

Anne McKnight akmck at earthlink.net
Sat Jun 10 03:14:26 EDT 2000


Film Form with Hammock:  Summer Screenings at Berkeley

     In the low-tech spirit of summer, I'm going to screen a series of videos
at Berkeley's Center for Japanese Studies.
    Each of these films--from the family still life of Kawase Naomi's _Suzaku_,
to the moral claims of ninja against  comic-book tyrannical landlords in
Oshima's 1968 film _Ninja bugei-cho_--is trying to do something interesting
with some mingling of form and ethnography.  They're questioning how one
apprehends the 'object' of the political, when the 'national' is an
over-ridingly obsessive category for film-makers and film-goers, at the same
time as trying to hazard a different language of the senses for representing,
or suggesting such objects, different organizing principles for documentation,
and the spectator's relation to these visions.
    (nb. There are _lots_ of indie/feature films that would be great to show,
which for a number of reasons I defer to a later date, and have by no means
spurned!)
    This means, for example, that gender and sexuality waltz occasionally, well
turned-out, into the lime-light, and that the politics of everyday life is also
seen as a theatre, co-extensive with public policy events.  In this series of
get-togethers, I'm basically interested in thinking about post-'movement'
cinema, and hope people will brashly bring their own interests and quizzical
attitudes to watching and talking about the films.  A couple of directors I
spoke to are VERY interested in feedback & reaction from a Berkeley ("")
audience, and I think this kind of thoughtful communication would be a great
thing to start via your comments, which I would very much like to share!

(I'm trying to come up with a better name for this, really, suggest away.)

WHAT'S HAPPENING (for dates, location etc. see below):
     The idea is that for a few Thursday afternoons in a row, people can come
and watch the film(s), and can shuffle off to Jupiter (local brewery/pub in
Berkeley, you can smoke too, under the heat lamps, just like you weren't really
in California, woo-hoo!) and hang out for a while.  I'm going to put together
some sources & readings for each week, insofar as I can get my mitts on them,
hoping that some continuities can emerge from week to week.
     SO--->If you're interested in more info, and readings/biblio, send me your
e-mail address, and I'll put you on a mailing list.  Depending on interest, I
can scan & put on the 'net, photocopy, or even translate material.  Feel free
to let me know if you have something you want assembled in the assemblage, or
to pitch in with any of the afore-mentioned efforts.

FILMS (which is to say, videos):
     I start with Ogawa Shunsuke's documentary about the anti-airport movement,
and how the strains of capital tug on relations between people living around
Narita, in the 60s protest heyday.  Given that the second verse of this
movement is going on right now--against the runway built for the World Cup--the
Sanrizuka film seemed both relevant to the here-and-now, and very provocative
in its way of dealing in real-time with fragile collectivities of students and
workers, and what animates a "movement."  Then I move to two younger directors,
Kawase and Tsuchiya, who engage in different modes of ethnography: Tsuchiya's
engage (that should have accents in it) politics which tries to elicit
introspection into the 'communal illusion' of the emperor system, as he and his
co-interviewer sideswipe people at Yasuguni jinja on war rememberance day; and
Kawase's study of a family in Nara.  To tell you the truth, this is the film I
have the most difficulty discussing, which is why I put it in here.
 Then there's Mori's _A_, which has lots of 'daily life' footage in Aum
practices, and follows up on Aum PR head Araki in the aftermath of the Sarin
incident.  It tracks both anti-Aum sentiments, and the possibility of Araki's
belief in/and authority cracking.  Next is Nakata Toichi's auto-bio account of
his relation to his father--a successful pachinko entrepreneur and Korean--and
to other more diffuse aspects of patriarchy and patriotism.  Finally, we take a
wild lurch between two generations of student activism.  Oshima's adaptation of
Shirato Sanpei's manga _Ninja bugei-cho_ , about righteous peasant anger and
protest vividly legible in contemporary class terms, was one of the early ATG
productions.  A surprising hit, particularly considering the fact that it
really _is_ a moving picture composed of stills, of manga frames.  Shirato was
big on the barricades; people said that angry young men stood with Marx in one
hand, and Shirato in the other.  And with Oshima is a short film by a young
director, a diary-like piece about the university's levelling of Komaba-ryo in
the mid 90s (it was a gradual squeezing out), shutting down the the
free-wheeling dorm at Tokyo University where many locate the ruins, the
hyper-utopianisms and the enthusiasms of the student movement.

June 29
_Sanrizuka no natsu_(Summer in Narita), dir. Ogawa Shunsuke. 1968, 108 min.
nb. No subtitles except for sometimes Japanese subtitles of Japanese
dialogue!!!

July 6
_Anata wa tenno no senso sekinin ni tsuite do omoimasuka?_(What do you think of
Emperor Hirohito's War Responsiblity?), dir. TSUCHIYA Yutaka, 1997, 53 min.
Subtitled in English.
_Moe no suzaku_(Suzaku), KAWASE Naomi.  1997, 95 min.  Subtitled in English.

July 13
_A_, dir. MORI Tatsuya.  1998, 136 min. Subtitled in English.

July 20
_Osaka Story_, dir. NAKATA Toichi.  1994, 75 min.  Some English in original;
otherwise subtitled in English.

July 27
_W/O_, ~30 minutes (more details later).  No subtitles.
_Ninja bugei-cho_(Manual of ninja martial arts), dir. OSHIMA Nagisa.  1967, 135
min.  Introductory narration is subtitled, but the rest is Japanese.

~~~All films will be shown at the Institute for East Asian Studies (IEAS)
Conference Room, 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor
~~~You can see a map here:  http://www.berkeley.edu/map/maps/CDEF123.html.  The
screening conditions are cushy chairs, and a big TV set.  I'm not registered
this semester at UCB, so I can't get the big, boffo projector.  This room is
very cozy though, good for intimacy & discussion.
~~~nb. doors are locked after 5, so if you're coming after 5, we need to make
special plans.
~~~Feel free to bring refreshments, but don't be a slob because otherwise I
have to vacuum (sigh).
~~~This is for free.  Which is to say that I or some nice kankei-sha owner of
film rights has already paid out.  Many thanks go to nice people at YIDFF
(thanks  Ono-san, Fujioka-san, Ando-san!) and Athenee Francais and others
(thanks Jonathan!) who took time to suggest titles, show them, and ferried and
mailed  them to me, and let me have these tapes so they don't languish while
the umpteenth Okuruguchi fest goes on (no hard feelings).  Thanks!!!
~~~CONTACT me for more info at akmck at earthlink.net, or call me at 415-864-1915
(I'll be out of town the 12-26).  I'll be doing something like this again (with
more indies/experimental work) so your suggestions are doozo'd.

~~~




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